Nat Miller is entitled to an award for courage.

He owns and operates Miller's Family Restaurant in Vass -- in the tobacco-growing heart of Moore County. The restaurant now offers smoke-free dining.

"Yes, we lost a couple of customers, but for every one (customer) we lost, I've picked up five more," Miller told me.

Miller says it was a hard decision to make, especially for a former smoker, but he has no regrets. For the most part, the reaction from customers and the public has been positive.

So far, Miller's Family is the only standard "sit-down" type restaurant in Moore County that has adopted a no-smoking policy. In fact, it is the only such restaurant in several counties in the region. The only other smoke-free restaurants are fast-food places, where dining rooms are not large enough to provide a smoke-free area.

By smoke-free, the restaurant means that there is absolutely no smoking at all anywhere in the dining room, kitchen or restrooms.

This means no separate smoking and non-smoking areas. In other words, there is no part of the restaurant where a smoker can indulge in a cigarette, cigar or pipe. The tobacco addict must go outdoors to smoke.

"I'm the Lone Ranger," Miller admitted.

Moore County is a community heavily endowed with older residents, and breathing problems are not uncommon. They find it difficult to breathe in an atmosphere drenched in smoke, even if it's smoke that drifts into the non-smoking area from the smoking area. Now, increasingly parents of small children are becoming conscious of the effect smoke can have on young bodies. These findings entered into Miller's reasoning in making his decision.

"They're all back," Miller said.

He was talking about the older people with breathing problems and the young couples with small children. The only folks not coming back are people who can't wait to light up.

It also means that Miller's Family Restaurant is just that, a restaurant dedicated to serving the entire family.

Miller predicts that within a few years, North Carolina will be forced to adopt a law banning smoking in all restaurants.

New York adopted a non-smoking ordinance several years ago, and Atlantic City, N.J., of all places, recently adopted a similar ordinance.

A survey taken in North Carolina two years ago revealed that 54 percent of the dining-out public would prefer smoke-free restaurants.

Legal issues are growing. Miller says that some people are crying out that smoking in public places may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. Then there's talk that restaurant owners may be liable if an employee becomes ill and blames it on second-hand smoke.

A native of Wisconsin, Miller tells of a recent visit to Kenosha, where he learned that the city has now joined the ranks of non-smoking local governments across the land.

Let me confess that I am a tobacco farm girl. I grew up on a tobacco farm in eastern North Carolina, and my heart is and always will be centered on the tobacco farm. Tobacco provided me with many comforts in my youth. I loved my cigarette-smoking father very much.

But I saw my father die of a smoking-related disease. Then I watched helplessly as my husband became increasingly addicted. He died of heart failure, aggravated by his insistence on smoking until he was too weak to light his pipe, much less hold it.

Then finally, I lost my writing mentor, Sam Ragan, longtime editor and publisher of The Pilot. Sam was such a chain smoker that I kept an ashtray in my office to accommodate his visits. He died of lung cancer.

In earlier years, tobacco may not have been the addictive drug that we have witnessed in recent generations. Our population is denser today than it was 50 years ago, and more people than ever eat out. We also know things about tobacco that were unknown, although perhaps suspected, in the early days of the tobacco industry.

Despite growing up on a tobacco farm, I never took to smoking. I experimented with it a few days when I was in college, but it just never caught on. I am so grateful that those few cigarettes did not turn me into an addict.

In summertime, the scent of curing tobacco perfumed the land, part of the romance of an industry fading because of health hazards.

Deep in my heart, I admit that some small part of me wants the tobacco industry to rise again, but this time with new uses -- uses that benefit society and that do not kill good men and women and injure future generations.